Dry hopping

[JDesquire]

I just put 16 oz of various aroma hops for dry hopping in my maharaja clone which has been fermenting for over 3 weeks (meant to start dry hopping 10 days ago, but it was still actively fermenting and getting bubbles all the way until yesterday).



Question for the forum: last time I dry hopped with this much hops I put them all directly in fermenter and it was a pain to bottle because so much of the hop pellets kept getting clogged in bottling wand. As a result, this time I boiled a few mesh hop bags in boiling water for ten minutes (to sanitize) then put the hops in these bags and then added to fermenter. I'm planning on dry hopping for 7 days like this then bottling. Has anyone used mesh bags like this before? How did batch turn out? Any issues or off flavors?



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[CadillacAndy]

I personally add my dry hops directly to the primary fermentor during the very last part of fermentation to hopefully scrub out any oxygen that gets introduced when dry hopping. I don't like to use hop bags on the cold side of brewing (anything after you turn off the flame) because I feel the chance for contamination greatly increases. I also think that hop bags can limit the oil extraction when used for dry hopping because the hops tend to expand in the bag and the hops in the middle to contact the liquid like they would if not in the hop bag.

What you could do is dry hop in the primary, then let them settle and rack over to another vessel - either a bottling bucket or another carboy and bottle from there. If you can cold crash before transferring, that would help to cut down on the green matter making it to the second vessel and in to the bottles.

 

[daksin]

With really big dry hops, you probably want to do multiple dry-hops in bags. Over about 3oz, you get diminishing returns on your dry hop, so do 3-4oz in a bag for a few days, then pull the hops out, add fresh hops, and repeat as desired. This is how Pliny, Kern River Citra, and other massive IIPAs are done.